Prepping, not for armchair commandos, couch geniuses, neddering naybobs of negativity

As you might imagine with a Blog called Be Prepared Channel it might be sort of obvious that I am pretty focused on preparedness, survival, skills, and getting things done. I haven't posted a lot in a long while, but I think it is time for me to change that as we are really busy with our preps, learning, doing, and lots of trial and error as we go along. I think it would be great to be able to share our experiences and maybe help others.

There are many aspects to prepping. There are many phases of the mindset of the person who calls themselves a prepper. To some it means buying a bunch of food, guns, ammo, and they think they are set. There are others that realize there is no way to buy everything your going to need so you better have some skills and some bartering going on, maybe get the garden going on and that sort of thing. That is an evolutionary leap in thought process as you dig more into what it means to be prepared. But those who have given this even more thought have come to the conclusion that if you really want to be prepared you have to be as sustainable in your lifestyle as possible so that you can minimize the number of inputs you and your family need to survive. To get to that place is a real jump in thought process to start to think about "how will I do that when the stores don't have that anymore?", "where will I get that thing, ingredient, tool etc when the economy goes south?", "how will I treat that insect infestation, powdery mildew, or some other horrible thing chewing up my garden when I don't have anymore insecticide, fungicide, insecticidal soap, etc?" For those that have evolved beyond the buy it and I am prepped mentality to the working toward sustainable living mindset I congratulate you on your arrival, but I join you in your struggle. It is a serious challenge to contemplate what happens when the grid is down, water, sewer don't work or the utilities are spotty and unreliable at best. It is a serious challenge when you have to contemplate how to deal with every day problems in your garden, on your land, or in your home when you cannot just run to a store to buy "whatever it is that fixes your issue". If you have come to this place the first thing you need to do is figure out your priorities. Priorities should be based on the largest threats to your most immediate survival.

Today, I hope and pray it isn't bombs, bullets, federal storm troopers, or roving bands of starving neighbors that is your most immediate threat. One of the challenges to being a prepper is having to learn TONS of new stuff, which ironically many times is really really OLD stuff that everyone used to know. So that means lots of time doing internet searches, reading articles, searching forums, reading books, and asking our previous generations how they used to do things. If your not in immediate danger then you have to look at the basics as your most immediate needs. Having done a lot of reading, following blogs and stories about Argentina, and Kosovo and what happened in those places. One was an economic collapse, one was a civil war. Looking at the most immediate threats to people and what killed most of those people it surprisingly comes down to a few things that killed more than bullets, bombs, and other hostilities. It was water and sanitation! I know! SEXY TOPICS! Not nearly as much fun as doing run and guns, and talking about things that go bang or other fun stuff. But guess what? That is the reality. If you don't have you water supply, filtration, and usage figured out your in serious trouble. If you don't have your sanitation and waste management figured out your in serious trouble. Those are the facts!

This brings me to the purpose for my post. There is always so much to learn, so much to do, the work never ends when your prepping. Lot's of things are trial and error. Lots of things you have to spend a lot of time reading, researching, and looking for different ways to do things because the way that they used to do them a long long time ago are difficult or impossible today. So you have to improvise. Also we have new threats today when it comes to a lot of things. We are surrounded by foods that are GMO and not safe to eat. We are dealing with city water supplies with toxins, poisons, and stuff that they intentionally put in that is dangerous for human health. So we have to go out and find ways to work around these things. We are surrounded by plastics, and chemicals that are not safe in the long haul. Just because something won't kill you where you stand because you touched it, drank out of it etc does not mean it isn't dangerous. All of this requires more reading, and more looking for ways to work around these complications and problems.

What I keep running into in my own reading and searching is that this "hobby" of ours is filled with armchair commandos, couch potato geniuses, and neddering naybobs of negativity. Someone goes to a forum and asks a perfectly legitimate question, one that implies someone is actually doing something and trying to work out the problem. Along come the commandos and geniuses, with wise arse comments. Brilliant deductions, and completely clueless responses. Why? Well I can only guess at this point. Most of them either haven't thought through the problems/details yet associate with the topic at hand(ie they are the buy some crap and I am prepped crowd), or they really are just extremely under educated. For example. Let's say your working your prepping plan and are working on your water supply. Capture, collection, filtration, long term sustainability. After many iterations of thought on the topic of water, rain water collection seems like a reasonably sustainable idea. The more you dig into the topic there are a lot of "devils in the details" on what, why, how etc. So you go out to the wise grand internet and hit some forums and sites that claim to be focused on the topics at hand in the area of prepping and survival. You probably will find others also are having the same questions, and are trying to find solutions to the various problems. And there are a lot of challenges. If your plan is to just buy some high tech filters and think everything is going to be fine... You haven't thought this through. You have to think long term. You have to ask, hmmmm what happens when my supply of filters in my storage plan runs out? Then you start to realize how many problems there are with your plan. So the commandos and geniuses pile into the conversation on rainwater collection. Opinions range from "your wasting your time", "you can't do that, chemtrail poisons in the rain water will kill you", "I have been drinking water right off my asphalt roof for 30 years and it never affected me..." It is really ridiculous the range of uninformed and ill informed responses there are. The negative naybobs are everywhere... Nothing can be done, it won't work, you cannot do it... I get so frustrated and pissed off that it is enough to make me what to blow beets! I am sick to death of the commandos and geniuses who obviously spend more time on their arses than they do prepping offering nothing but obstacles to those of us who are doing it. Listen here "little boys, and little girls", Prepping isn't for pussy's, couches, armchairs, or some video game where you can just hit the reset, and do it over. If you don't have anything constructive to offer then stay off the forums and getting in the way of people who are serious and trying to get things done.

 If your new to prepping please don't get discouraged. There are a lot of idiots out here on the internet. Most of them will be among the roving hoards of neighbors starving because their prep plan had no thought, depth, or execution to their game plan. Just remember to keep on searching, and ask around. I am finding there are a lot more people getting on board prepping now. It is practically a topic of conversation everywhere it seems like... And no I am not the one bringing it up! LOL

Now what was I searching for that got me all riled up? Well lots of things, but the one that really go my goat was construction of a biosand or slow sand filter. What is a biosand or slow sand filter? I am glad you asked! The biosand or slow sand filter uses a couple grades of sand, a couple of grades of gravel or rock in barrel or bucket depending on what you need. You can filter well, rain, pond, river, stream water through it. It is not intended for tap water. Why? Because of the chemicals and chlorine that is in the water. Why would that matter? Because the biosand or slow sand filter over the space of a couple of weeks will start to grow an algae and bacteria in the sand. This bacteria and algae are what eats the bad stuff that is in your water. The chemicals in your tap water will kill your filter. Why a biosand or slow sand filter? This filter and media will last for up to 10 years with very little maintenance and no ongoing costs. No more expensive filters, and real long term sustainability. Yes, I do have an expensive Berkey water filtration system that has been part of my plan and we use it on a daily basis today. This is all part of that evolution beyond the buy it at the store mentality. The Berkey becomes plan B should plan A fail.

To use the Biosand filter we are going to use rainwater. So we setup a rainwater collection system and we were able to capture and fill our rainbarrels. Now I won't go into the details in this post on the rainwater catchment system. There is a lot to it, and it is evolving fast as we think, rethink, then do it over, and think about it some more! ROFL It is fun and frustrating at the same time.

So we started filtering our rain water through the Berkey. It is really great tasting water! There have been lots of trials and tribulations which I won't go into here on trying to sort out our water needs. I will talk about that more in some later posts as I am sure some of you will be interested in what we have tried, what worked, what didn't, what lessons we learned etc. I do feel like we are beginning to close in on some real solutions however.

The biosand filter is the next evolution. Now I have to build it! The fun or not so fun part of this hobby is not just learning about things, but trying to figure out how to make it work, and locating the stuff you need to get it done. That is where the commandos and geniuses will get in your way. Ignore them, they are wasting your time, and warming the planet with their hot air. So all of my biosand questions have NOT been answered, but a few things came to mind that made me realize I was asking the wrong questions. One of the problems with rain water is similar to the problems we have with Reverse Osmosis filtered water, or distilled water. That is the water is acidic. Is it bad enough to be harmful? I think from all the reading and various reports I have read the answer is likely no it won't kill you, but over the long term it could be one of the factors affecting your bodies PH balance which is a real problem for most people. They eat foods that are acidic in the body an that is predominantly what they eat is acid forming foods. People don't think of these foods as acid, but in the body that is what they become. Water is normally not acidic due to inorganic minerals that are in the water. You strip out those minerals and the carbon dioxide reacts with the water to become acidic. This along with any organic material etc that is in the water also causes acid forming compounds.

So why the focus on acidic water? Well the problem really stems from the materials we have available today to build our biosand filter. The materials are largely plastics, PVC, and adhesives. All of these things are a chemical soup that we really don't want in our water. So to start with I bought some food grade buckets(the 5 gallon variety), #2 HDPE type. It the the most inert type of plastic you will find. Later on depending on my level of success with the biosand filter I will replace this with something that is stainless steel or I will consider building one out of concrete. Next was the piping for this filter. Everyone is using PVC. PVC is terrible stuff. To the envrionment, and more importantly what it leaches into our water is dangerous. People say to use CPVC which is rated for hot and cold water. That still doesn't make me feel any better. And the adhesives will be coming in contact with the water as well and that just isn't a good idea. So I started trying to figure out how I could do this with copper, or galvanized pipe. I found lots of references saying not to do this with either thing because the acid water will eat the pipes leaving contamination in the water. So I have been searching high and low trying to think about how to do this with something that I could obtain easily, and would be easy for me to put together.

Then I realized I was thinking about this all wrong. The problem here isn't the pipe. At least not the copper or galvanized pipe. The problem is the acid water.... Why not make it non-acidic water? I had remembered reading about old timers who used to use cisterns for their water at their homes. One of the things I had read was they used to put clam or oyster shells into the cistern. This is calcium that is dissolved into the water changing the PH of the water. I thought great, but I don't live near a place where I have oyster or clam shells. That would work fine for someone who lives in a place where they can just go wander down a beach and pickup shells. So that made me think about egg shells. I found some interesting articles on egg shell grit for treating water. So far I haven't figured out how to make it work. So I am still cranking on the details and trying to figure it out.

 It has been a busy weekend of canning food, tending to gardens, composting, cleaning, cooking, etc. Hopefully I will get a chance to begin my construction soon of my biosand filter. I will talk you through the pieces, parts, and will try to get some pictures and video of the process so you can get an idea. The first unit will be a prototype as we work out the kinks. I decided to try the galvanized pipe for the filter. We will see how that works out.

So if you have some thoughts, feedback, questions on biosand filters, gardening, canning, or whatever you have on your mind give me a shout. I am still grinding through the details on my water catchment system, capacity, and use. If you have some thoughts or feedback on how you made your system work give me a shout. I would love to hear from you!

BTW, one of the frustrating parts with this project is that everyone talks about possibly, someday, maybe having to use rainwater for drinking and consumption.... Ummm, folks you need to start doing instead of thinking about doing. There is a lot of work and details you will need to sort out before you get to that place where you will or can consume your rainwater. Many of these folks have constructed a water catchment using PVC and toxic substances. Please folks if your thinking you might have to consume it then do yourself a favor and rethink your plan and consider the risks you might be facing if you don't think through the nature of your water collection, storage, and use. This is serious business, and now is the time to be thinking through the details.

 Don't be just another armchair, couch commando genius... there is a lot of learning in doing. And guess what? There aren't too many people doing it! Learn it, do it, share it...

Take Care,
Longsnowsm